We Don't Need No Stinking Health Care Reform

[Seeker630]

The day before yesterday I went to pick up a refill for one of the 4 prescription medicines I take. It is for a 90 day supply. I take it once a day. Crestor 20mg. For cholesterol control. It seems the price went up. My co-pay was $50.00, and my insurance picked up the rest. The total cost you ask?------------

Spoiler:

$504.00

No we don't need no stinking health care reform in this country, no sirree bubba.

[Deacon Doubtmonger]

What the FUCK??? Surely there's a mistake, whether computer or human, somewhere???

[marco di angelo]

They scream that we're turning into Europe (and last time I checked most European countries were our allies). Maybe we should, to some extent. I can do without being told by the government what height to trim my hedges and what to name my kids (once I have some), as some European countries do, but what kind of person would fight to keep a setup going where people die or go bankrupt for lack of decent, affordable health care?

[grumpy]

Wouldn't it be great if we could be 'cafeteria Europeans'. Model our health care on one country, our marijuana laws on another, our religiosity on yet another, and so on.

[Shake]

Oh no, I'm not that surprised. I've seen similar things and been very thankful of our prescription coverage.

[marco di angelo]

Originally Posted by grumpy

Wouldn't it be great if we could be 'cafeteria Europeans'. Model our health care on one country, our marijuana laws on another, our religiosity on yet another, and so on.

Or if we can't break up these "too big to fail" corporations into smaller companies, we could at least agree to let them assume we'd bail them out if necessary on condition they submit to closer government oversight, as I understand some European countries do (Japan also?) There's definitely some things we can learn from other countries and apply to conditions here. Better health care, less religiosity, more reasonable marijuana laws. Sure. I think Mexico's separation of church and state is much stricter than ours; if we brought it here, Pat Robertson and Fred Phelps and their ilk would have to shut up. Goodbye, Christian Coalition, the Conference of Catholic Bishops and all these other theocratic political groups that are trying to dictate so many things to everyone else in this country, including what kind of health care we get.

[Seeker630]

Originally Posted by Deacon Doubtmonger

What the FUCK??? Surely there's a mistake, whether computer or human, somewhere???

Oh no, not at all. This is what happens when corporations buy up Congress critters. There is no generic for Crestor yet, so they can charge whatever price they want to. If I ever lose my prescription coverage I'm fucked. Just for one pill I take once a day, it's over $2000.00 a year.

No kidding. I take a total of 4 prescription meds, but the Crestor is by far and away the most expensive. I'd like to walk into a board meeting of a major pharma company and express my opinion----

[Terry]

Originally Posted by Seeker630

If I ever lose my prescription coverage I'm fucked.

I'm curious - how could that happen?
In germany this cannot happen, because we have a right on medical insurance by law and necessary meds (according to your doctor) will always be paid for.
There are some meds your doctor may give you a prescription for, that aren't covered/paid for by the insurances... but this applies to ALL insured persons... there aren't people who've got coverage and others who haven't.

[Quath]

I am ok with big charges for medicine since we work off of a capitalistic approach towards medicine (with some government work thrown in). The basic idea is that it costs a lot of money to develop a new drug. The company that does that research needs to recoup their cost and make some money on top of it (or else they would not even bother). What gets rolled up into that price is the original R&D, the failed R&D of dead end medicines, and drug testing.

The drug company knows they have a limited time to make back their money before generic versions come out, so they have to charge a lot quickly. Once the generics are out, the company needs a new product to come out to make more money.

This is a highly simplified view of the system and I am sure there are many medicines that violate this view. But I don't see a solution to cheaper medicine unless we pay higher taxes for government labs (or tax breaks to offset some drug research) or have stronger patent protection for drug companies so they can sell the medicine longer.

[lpetrich]

That might be tolerable as long as the money goes into R&D and not marketing. But there is evidence that much of the money goes into marketing:

Big Pharma Spends More On Advertising Than Research And Development, Study Finds

A new study by two York University researchers estimates the U.S. pharmaceutical industry spends almost twice as much on promotion as it does on research and development, contrary to the industry’s claim.

The researchers’ estimate is based on the systematic collection of data directly from the industry and doctors during 2004, which shows the U.S. pharmaceutical industry spent 24.4% of the sales dollar on promotion, versus 13.4% for research and development, as a percentage of US domestic sales of US$235.4 billion.

Report links high drug prices to marketing costs, executive payouts and profits
Etc.

[Seeker630]

Originally Posted by Terry

I'm curious - how could that happen?
In germany this cannot happen, because we have a right on medical insurance by law and necessary meds (according to your doctor) will always be paid for.
There are some meds your doctor may give you a prescription for, that aren't covered/paid for by the insurances... but this applies to ALL insured persons... there aren't people who've got coverage and others who haven't.

It's easy. In the U.S. there is no law that says that anyone has to provide anybody with medicine or health care. We have medicare and medicaid, but I don't qualify for either because I'm not old enough and not poor enough. The insurance I have is because it was provided to me as a contractual benefit from the organization I used to work for when I was younger. But I worked for local government, and now with hard times tax revenues are down, and they are looking for ways to cut budget costs. One of the first things they try is to shit on retirees.

I work with a 75 year old woman who gets terrible migraine headaches from time to time. She has a prescription pill she takes only when the pain becomes unbearable. It costs $32.70 for ONE PILL!

This is a huge part of why health insurance in this country is so insanely expensive.

Terry let me ask you this-----When a family is no longer able to take care of an elderly relative, and they need assisted living or a nursing home situation, what happens to them in Germany? Is that part of health care covered by your system?

[grumpy]

The person to ask might be Gurdur. I'll bet he has made himself an expert on the German Health Care System.

[Terry]

Originally Posted by Seeker630

Terry let me ask you this-----When a family is no longer able to take care of an elderly relative, and they need assisted living or a nursing home situation, what happens to them in Germany? Is that part of health care covered by your system?

Kind of.... it was paid by health insurance until the late 80s... then one could foresee that with the demographic change this couldn't be so much longer. Thus the government created a new mandatory insurance: "Pflegeversicherung" (nursing care insurance). Everyone has to have one, and those who cannot afford it are sponsored by the rest, that is those who can. Very simplified written - called (according to dictionary) collective body of the insured or shared risk community.

But these concepts are kind of "socialistic" from an USamerican point of view, I bet.

[AspenMama]

Terry-- I think that sounds very practical and humanistic. But you are right that many here would call it socialistic. Sigh.

[Seeker630]

Originally Posted by Terry

------------------


But these concepts are kind of "socialistic" from an USamerican point of view, I bet.

In this country any social program is viewed by the right as socialistic. There are many who want to eliminate Medicare, Medicaid and even Social Security. Being disadvantaged or poor here is like having leprosy.

[Quath]

Originally Posted by lpetrich

That might be tolerable as long as the money goes into R&D and not marketing. But there is evidence that much of the money goes into marketing:

Yeah, this is one of the issues where you can see a clear advantage to government labs doing the work. Another is that they can focus on issues that don't have a high return expected. For example, one drug company found an algorithm that did a better job of predicting a medical outcome with an existing test. The Supreme Court ruled that this was closer to basic science and could not be patented. So there is not a big incentive for a company to do more stuff like that.

Also, drug companies will target where the money is and less so for pushing for general health. So anti-aging creams, receding hairlines, balding, erectile dysfunction get a lot of research because that is what most consumers want. A drug that only saves the life of a few thousand people will get a lot less attention.

Whenever I played the video game, Civilization, I was one who put a lot of money into science. I sometimes wish that instead of candidates debating, they would play a few games of Civilization and let us see how they would do.

[Seeker630]

I can't make this shit up-----it's right up there with Alabama immigration restrictions--------------

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/25/bu...ewanted=1&_r=1

[Dawn]

When I had to have my gallbladder out they called me before I went to the hospital and demanded payment up front asking for a credit card number. I was taken by surprise and I gave it to them. Stupidly, because I had to start the clock on interest before I even got the surgery. It was not presented as if I had any option not to pay it all up front. Even with my expensive insurance (I have the extra good plan at work and pay extra for it), I had to pay $2500 for my part of an outpatient procedure. Luckily, that was my out of pocket maximum per procedure or it would have been a whole lot more. If I had the cheaper insurance my out of pocket maximum per procedure would have been $5000. I was only in the hospital 4 hours and that didn't count the surgeon's fee.

ETA: the overall bill was outrageous! I would have been up shit creek without the insurance.

[Gurdur]

Originally Posted by Seeker630

... When a family is no longer able to take care of an elderly relative, and they need assisted living or a nursing home situation, what happens to them in Germany? Is that part of health care covered by your system?

Yes, it's pretty fully covered. Home visits and care and all. Nursing home and all. Huge degree of financial help for German citizens.

*snarl*
[I am not a German citizen. I get pretty full health coverage, but some of the frills such as home care I won't get, or unemployment insurance and an old-age or illness pension, owing to life accidents and the fact I am not a German citizen. *snarl* My own fault, really, I could become a German citizen were I willing to give up my Australian citizenship, which I am not. Both Australia and Germany tend to dislike voluntary double-citizenship].

It is basically impossible not to get reasonably adequate healthcare if you are a German citizen. In order to NOT get it you have to be a very wanky alkie or druggie who refuses to ever visit the hospital or even the special caravan clinics set up for street-alkies. IOW, you have to seriously make a serious effort to avoid being given an adequate level of healthcare. Pretty sure tourists have it reasonably good too, not expensive.

Mind you, despite not being a German citizen, I get excellent dental care. All part of normal health coverage. I pay monthly, but it's not expensive, and has never let me down badly.

[Seeker630]

Gurdur, compared to the U.S., you live in a right medical utopia. We can only dream of that kind of coverage here.

ETA-----unless you have good coverage through your employer, or you are just stinking wealthy beyond imagination.

[Terry]

And again...

If I ever lose my prescription coverage I'm fucked.

How could this happen? What would have to change in your life to make that happen? Would unemployment be enough change for this?

[Gurdur]

Originally Posted by Terry

And again...

How could this happen? What would have to change in your life to make that happen? Would unemployment be enough change for this?

It's the USA. Weird place. All sorts of things can happen to him and he might lose his prescription coverage. If it does happen, to him or anyone else here in the USA, check out this thread on the Hub for extremely helpful info on how to get free or cheap prescription medications legally and trustfully. The process described in that thread covers most all prescription medicines, not just the ones named in that thread.

[Shadowfox]

Health care and costs in the US of A are ridiculous. The so called health care reform is not reforming the actual health care but how it's paid for. But I do believe that health care is what needs reform! How docs have to charge ever higher and higher so they can get some reasonable payment from insurance companies. How big pharma jacks up prices, gets out a new brand name when the old one goes generic, how they advertise. Advertise? Bothers me that they go for the patient who will then demand that drug from the doc. . . . Forget about the cost of development - the cost of advertising is probably the biggest part of any drug cost.

I'm glad I do have good insurance coverage as I have a disability that requires meds. I'd just not get them otherwise - that would mean a lot earlier death.

[Dawn]

I agree, Shadowfox. We need a massive health care reform. The whole system needs to change. I think a single payer plan would have been a step in the right direction but we need a serious in depth change in the way the health care system operates.

[Shadowfox]

Originally Posted by Gurdur

It's the USA. Weird place. All sorts of things can happen to him and he might lose his prescription coverage. If it does happen, to him or anyone else here in the USA, check out this thread on the Hub for extremely helpful info on how to get free or cheap prescription medications legally and trustfully. The process described in that thread covers most all prescription medicines, not just the ones named in that thread.

Some major pharmacies (such as Krogers and Walgreens) in the US of A are offering very low cost generic drugs. My Krogers affiliate, King Soopers, has a list of hundreds available for four bucks for a month's supply and 10 bucks for 3 month's supply. Without insurance coverage that's a pretty good deal. With, if your copay is more, I suppose the drug would actually be free. My copay is less for generics so I do pay that but after a couple of months into the year, my drug coverage says no copay at all for the rest of the years for generics!